Transcriber's Note
Italics are indicated by _underscores_, and bold text by =equals= signs.
[Illustration: HENRY MAYHEW.
[_From a Daguerreotype by_ BEARD.]]
LONDON LABOUR
AND THE LONDON POOR
A Cyclopædia of the Condition and Earnings
OF
THOSE THAT _WILL_ WORK
THOSE THAT _CANNOT_ WORK, AND
THOSE THAT _WILL NOT_ WORK
BY
HENRY MAYHEW
THE LONDON STREET-FOLK
COMPRISING
STREET SELLERS · STREET BUYERS · STREET FINDERS
STREET PERFORMERS · STREET ARTIZANS · STREET LABOURERS
WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
VOLUME ONE
First edition 1851
(_Volume One only and parts of Volumes Two and Three_)
Enlarged edition (Four volumes) 1861-62
New impression 1865
CONTENTS
OF
VOLUME I.
THE STREET-FOLK.
PAGE
WANDERING TRIBES IN GENERAL 1
WANDERING TRIBES IN THE COUNTRY 2
THE LONDON STREET-FOLK 3
COSTERMONGERS 4
STREET SELLERS OF FISH 61
STREET SELLERS OF FRUIT AND VEGETABLES 79
STATIONARY STREET SELLERS OF FISH, FRUIT, AND VEGETABLES 97
THE STREET IRISH 104
STREET SELLERS OF GAME, POULTRY, RABBITS, BUTTER, CHEESE, AND EGGS 120
STREET SELLERS OF TREES, SHRUBS, FLOWERS, ROOTS, SEEDS, AND BRANCHES 131
STREET SELLERS OF GREEN STUFF 145
STREET SELLERS OF EATABLES AND DRINKABLES 158
STREET SELLERS OF STATIONERY, LITERATURE, AND THE FINE ARTS 213
STREET SELLERS OF MANUFACTURED ARTICLES 323
THE WOMEN STREET SELLERS 457
THE CHILDREN STREET SELLERS 468
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON COSTERMONGER Page 13
THE COSTER GIRL „ 37
THE OYSTER STALL „ 49
THE ORANGE MART (DUKE’S PLACE) „ 73
THE IRISH STREET-SELLER „ 97
THE WALL-FLOWER GIRL „ 127
THE GROUNDSELL MAN „ 147
THE BAKED POTATO MAN „ 167
THE COFFEE STALL To face page 184
COSTER BOY AND GIRL “TOSSING THE PIEMAN” „ 196
DOCTOR BOKANKY, THE STREET-HERBALIST „ 206
THE LONG SONG SELLER „ 222
ILLUSTRATIONS OF STREET ART, NO. I. „ 224
„ „ NO. II. „ 238
THE HINDOO TRACT SELLER „ 242
THE “KITCHEN,” FOX COURT „ 251
ILLUSTRATIONS OF STREET ART, NO. III. „ 278
THE BOOK AUCTIONEER „ 296
THE STREET-SELLER OF NUTMEG-GRATERS „ 330
THE STREET-SELLER OF DOG-COLLARS „ 360
THE STREET-SELLER OF CROCKERYWARE „ 366
THE BLIND BOOT-LACE SELLER „ 406
THE STREET-SELLER OF GREASE-REMOVING COMPOSITION „ 428
THE LUCIFER-MATCH GIRL „ 432
THE STREET-SELLER OF WALKING-STICKS „ 438
THE STREET-SELLER OF RHUBARB AND SPICE „ 452
THE STREET-SELLER OF COMBS „ 458
PORTRAIT OF MR. MAYHEW To face the Title Page
PREFACE.
The present volume is the first of an intended series, which it is
hoped will form, when complete, a cyclopædia of the industry, the want,
and the vice of the great Metropolis.
It is believed that the book is curious for many reasons:
It surely may be considered curious as being the first attempt
to publish the history of a people, from the lips of the people
themselves--giving a literal description of their labour, their
earnings, their trials, and their sufferings, in their own
“unvarnished” language; and to pourtray the condition of their homes
and their families by personal observation of the places, and direct
communion with the individuals.
It may be considered curious also as being the first commission
of inquiry into the state of the people, undertaken by a private
individual, and the first “blue book” ever published in twopenny
numbers.
It is curious, moreover, as supplying information concerning a large
body of persons, of whom the public had less knowledge than of the most
distant tribes of the earth--the government population returns not even
numbering them among the inhabitants of the kingdom; and as adducing
facts so extraordinary, that the traveller in the undiscovered country
of the poor must, like Bruce, until his stories are corroborated by
after investigators, be content to lie under the imputation of telling
such tales, as travellers are generally supposed to delight in.
Be the faults of the present volume what they may, assuredly they
are rather short-comings than exaggerations, for in every instance
the author and his coadjutors have sought to understate, and most
assuredly never to exceed the truth. For the omissions, the author
would merely remind the reader of the entire novelty of the task--there
being no other similar work in the language by which to guide or
check his inquiries. When the following leaves are turned over, and
the two or three pages of information derived from books contrasted
with the hundreds of pages of facts obtained by positive observation
and investigation, surely some allowance will be made for the details
which may still be left for others to supply. Within the last two years
some thousands of the humbler classes of society must have been seen
and visited with the especial view of noticing their condition and
learning their histories; and it is but right that the truthfulness of
the poor generally should be made known; for though checks have been
usually adopted, the people have been mostly found to be astonishingly
correct in their statements,--so much so indeed, that the attempts at
deception are certainly the exceptions rather than the rule. Those
persons who, from an ignorance of the simplicity of the honest poor,
might be inclined to think otherwise, have, in order to be convinced
of the justice of the above remarks, only to consult the details given
in the present volume, and to perceive the extraordinary agreement in
the statements of all the vast number of individuals who have been seen
at different times, and who cannot possibly have been supposed to have
been acting in concert.
The larger statistics, such as those of the quantities of fish and
fruit, &c., sold in London, have been collected from tradesmen
connected with the several markets, or from the wholesale merchants
belonging to the trade specified--gentlemen to whose courtesy and
co-operation I am indebted for much valuable information, and whose
names, were I at liberty to publish them, would be an indisputable
guarantee for the facts advanced. The other statistics have been
obtained in the same manner--the best authorities having been
invariably consulted on the subject treated of.
It is right that I should make special mention of the assistance I have
received in the compilation of the present volume from Mr. HENRY WOOD
and Mr. RICHARD KNIGHT (late of the City Mission), gentlemen who have
been engaged with me from nearly the commencement of my inquiries, and
to whose hearty co-operation both myself and the public are indebted
for a large increase of knowledge. Mr. Wood, indeed, has contributed so
large a proportion of the contents of the present volume that he may
fairly be considered as one of its authors.
The subject of the Street-Folk will still require another volume,
in order to complete it in that comprehensive manner in which I am
desirous of executing the modern history of this and every other
portion of the people. There still remain--the _Street-Buyers_, the
_Street-Finders_, the _Street-Performers_, the _Street-Artizans_,
and the _Street-Labourers_, to be done, among the several classes
of street-people; and the _Street Jews_, the _Street Italians and
Foreigners_, and the _Street Mechanics_, to be treated of as varieties
of the order. The present volume refers more particularly to the
_Street-Sellers_, and includes special accounts of the _Costermongers_
and the _Patterers_ (the two broadly-marked varieties of street
tradesmen), the _Street Irish_, the _Female Street-Sellers_, and the
_Children Street-Sellers_ of the metropolis.
My earnest hope is that the book may serve to give the rich a more
intimate knowledge of the sufferings, and the frequent heroism under
those sufferings, of the poor--that it may teach those who are beyond
temptation to look with charity on the frailties of their less
fortunate brethren--and cause those who are in “high places,” and those
of whom much is expected, to bestir themselves to improve the condition
of a class of people whose misery, ignorance, and vice, amidst all the
immense wealth and great knowledge of “the first city in the world,”
is, to say the very least, a national disgrace to us.
LONDON LABOUR
AND
THE LONDON POOR.
THE STREET-FOLK.
OF WANDERING TRIBES IN GENERAL.
Of the thousand millions of human beings that are said to constitute
the population of the entire globe, there are--socially, morally,
and perhaps even physically considered--but two distinct and broadly
marked races, viz., the wanderers and the settlers--the vagabond and
the citizen--the nomadic and the civilized tribes. Between these two
extremes, however, ethnologists recognize a mediate variety, partaking
of the attributes of both. There is not only the race of hunters and
manufacturers--those who live by shooting and fishing, and those who
live by producing--but, say they, there are also the herdsmen, or those
who live by tending and feeding, what they consume.
Each of these classes has its peculiar and distinctive physical as
well as moral characteristics. “There are in mankind,” says Dr.
Pritchard, “three principal varieties in the form of the head and other
physical characters. Among the rudest tribes of men--the hunters and
savage inhabitants of forests, dependent for their supply of food on
the accidental produce of the soil and the chase--a form of head is
prevalent which is mostly distinguished by the term “_prognathous_,”
indicating a prolongation or extension forward of the jaws. A second
shape of the head belongs principally to such races as wander with
their herds and flocks over vast plains; these nations have broad
lozenge-shaped faces (owing to the great development of the cheek
bones), and pyramidal skulls. The most civilized races, on the other
hand--those who live by the arts of cultivated life,--have a shape
of the head which differs from both of those above mentioned. The
characteristic form of the skull among these nations may be termed oval
or elliptical.”
These three forms of head, however, clearly admit of being reduced
to two broadly-marked varieties, according as the bones of the face
or those of the skull are more highly developed. A greater relative
development of the jaws and cheek bones, says the author of the
“Natural History of Man,” indicates a more ample extension of the
organs subservient to sensation and the animal faculties. Such a
configuration is adapted to the wandering tribes; whereas, the greater
relative development of the bones of the skull--indicating as it does
a greater expansion of the brain, and consequently of the intellectual
faculties--is especially adapted to the civilized races or settlers,
who depend mainly on their knowledge of the powers and properties of
things for the necessaries and comforts of life.
Moreover it would appear, that not only are all races divisible into
wanderers and settlers, but that each civilized or settled tribe has
generally some wandering horde intermingled with, and in a measure
preying upon, it.
According to Dr. Andrew Smith, who has recently made extensive
observations in South Africa, almost every tribe of people who have
submitted themselves to social laws, recognizing the rights of
property and reciprocal social duties, and thus acquiring wealth
and forming themselves into a respectable caste, are surrounded by
hordes of vagabonds and outcasts from their own community. Such are
the Bushmen and _Sonquas_ of the Hottentot race--the term “_sonqua_”
meaning literally _pauper_. But a similar condition in society produces
similar results in regard to other races; and the Kafirs have their
Bushmen as well as the Hottentots--these are called _Fingoes_--a word
signifying wanderers, beggars, or outcasts. The Lappes seem to have
borne a somewhat similar relation to the Finns; that is to say, they
appear to have been a wild and predatory tribe who sought the desert
like the Arabian Bedouins, while the Finns cultivated the soil like the
industrious Fellahs.
But a phenomenon still more deserving of notice, is the difference
of speech between the Bushmen and the Hottentots. The people of some
hordes, Dr. Andrew Smith assures us, vary their speech designedly,
and adopt new words, with the intent of rendering their ideas
unintelligible to all but the members of their own community. For this
last custom a peculiar name exists, which is called “_cuze-cat_.” This
is considered as greatly advantageous in assisting concealment of their
designs.
Here, then, we have a series of facts of the utmost social importance.
(1) There are two distinct races of men, viz.:--the wandering and
the civilized tribes; (2) to each of these tribes a different form
of head is peculiar, the wandering races being remarkable for the
development of the bones of the face, as the jaws, cheek-bones, &c.,
and the civilized for the development of those of the head; (3) to each
civilized tribe there is generally a wandering horde attached; (4) such
wandering hordes have frequently a different language from the more
civilized portion of the community, and that adopted with the intent of
concealing their designs and exploits from them.
It is curious that no one has as yet applied the above facts to the
explanation of certain anomalies in the present state of society
among ourselves. That we, like the Kafirs, Fellahs, and Finns, are
surrounded by wandering hordes--the “Sonquas” and the “Fingoes” of
this country--paupers, beggars, and outcasts, possessing nothing but
what they acquire by depredation from the industrious, provident, and
civilized portion of the community;--that the heads of these nomades
are remarkable for the greater development of the jaws and cheekbones
rather than those of the head;--and that they have a secret language
of their own--an English “_cuze-cat_” or “slang” as it is called--for
the concealment of their designs: these are points of coincidence so
striking that, when placed before the mind, make us marvel that the
analogy should have remained thus long unnoticed.
The resemblance once discovered, however, becomes of great service in
enabling us to use the moral characteristics of the nomade races of
other countries, as a means of comprehending the more readily those
of the vagabonds and outcasts of our own. Let us therefore, before
entering upon the subject in hand, briefly run over the distinctive,
moral, and intellectual features of the wandering tribes in general.
The nomad then is distinguished from the civilized man by his
repugnance to regular and continuous labour--by his want of providence
in laying up a store for the future--by his inability to perceive
consequences ever so slightly removed from immediate apprehension--by
his passion for stupefying herbs and roots, and, when possible, for
intoxicating fermented liquors--by his extraordinary powers of enduring
privation--by his comparative insensibility to pain--by an immoderate
love of gaming, frequently risking his own personal liberty upon a
single cast--by his love of libidinous dances--by the pleasure he
experiences in witnessing the suffering of sentient creatures--by
his delight in warfare and all perilous sports--by his desire for
vengeance--by the looseness of his notions as to property--by the
absence of chastity among his women, and his disregard of female
honour--and lastly, by his vague sense of religion--his rude idea of
a Creator, and utter absence of all appreciation of the mercy of the
Divine Spirit.
Strange to say, despite its privations, its dangers, and its hardships,
those who have once adopted the savage and wandering mode of life,
rarely abandon it. There are countless examples of white men adopting
all the usages of the Indian hunter, but there is scarcely one example
of the Indian hunter or trapper adopting the steady and regular habits
of civilized life; indeed, the various missionaries who have visited
nomade races have found their labours utterly unavailing, so long as a
wandering life continued, and have succeeded in bestowing the elements
of civilization, only on those compelled by circumstances to adopt a
settled habitation.
OF THE WANDERING TRIBES OF THIS COUNTRY.
The nomadic races of England are of many distinct kinds--from the
habitual vagrant--half-beggar, half-thief--sleeping in barns, tents,
and casual wards--to the mechanic on tramp, obtaining his bed and
supper from the trade societies in the different towns, on his way
to seek work. Between these two extremes there are several mediate
varieties--consisting of pedlars, showmen, harvest-men, and all that
large class who live by either selling, showing, or doing something
through the country. These are, so to speak, the rural nomads--not
confining their wanderings to any one particular locality, but
ranging often from one end of the land to the other. Besides these,
there are the urban and suburban wanderers, or those who follow some
itinerant occupation in and round about the large towns. Such are, in
the metropolis more particularly, the pickpockets--the beggars--the
prostitutes--the street-sellers--the street-performers--the cabmen--the
coachmen--the watermen--the sailors and such like. In each of these
classes--according as they partake more or less of the purely vagabond,
doing nothing whatsoever for their living, but moving from place to
place preying upon the earnings of the more industrious portion of the
community, so will the attributes of the nomade tribes be found to be
more or less marked in them. Whether it be that in the mere act of
wandering, there is a greater determination of blood to the surface
of the body, and consequently a less quantity sent to the brain, the
muscles being thus nourished at the expense of the mind, I leave
physiologists to say. But certainly be the physical cause what it may,
we must all allow that in each of the classes above-mentioned, there
is a greater development of the animal than of the intellectual or
moral nature of man, and that they are all more or less distinguished
for their high cheek-bones and protruding jaws--for their use of a
slang language--for their lax ideas of property--for their general
improvidence--their repugnance to continuous labour--their disregard of
female honour--their love of cruelty--their pugnacity--and their utter
want of religion.
OF THE LONDON STREET-FOLK.
Those who obtain their living in the streets of the metropolis are a
very large and varied class; indeed, the means resorted to in order “to
pick up a crust,” as the people call it, in the public thoroughfares
(and such in many instances it _literally_ is,) are so multifarious
that the mind is long baffled in its attempts to reduce them to
scientific order or classification.
It would appear, however, that the street-people may be all arranged
under six distinct genera or kinds.
These are severally:
I. STREET-SELLERS.
II. STREET-BUYERS.
III. STREET-FINDERS.
IV. STREET-PERFORMERS, ARTISTS, AND SHOWMEN.
V. STREET-ARTIZANS, or WORKING PEDLARS; and
VI. STREET-LABOURERS.
The first of these divisions--the STREET-SELLERS--includes many
varieties; viz.--
1. _The Street-sellers of Fish, &c._--“wet,” “dry,” and shell-fish--and
poultry, game, and cheese.
2. _The Street-sellers of Vegetables_, fruit (both “green” and “dry”),
flowers, trees, shrubs, seeds, and roots, and “green stuff” (as
water-cresses, chickweed and grun’sel, and turf).
3. _The Street-sellers of Eatables and Drinkables_,--including the
vendors of fried fish, hot eels, pickled whelks, sheep’s trotters,
ham sandwiches, peas’-soup, hot green peas, penny pies, plum “duff,”
meat-puddings, baked potatoes, spice-cakes, muffins and crumpets,
Chelsea buns, sweetmeats, brandy-balls, cough drops, and cat and dog’s
meat--such constituting the principal eatables sold in the street;
while under the head of street-drinkables may be specified tea and
coffee, ginger-beer, lemonade, hot wine, new milk from the cow, asses
milk, curds and whey, and occasionally water.
4. _The Street-sellers of Stationery, Literature, and the Fine
Arts_--among whom are comprised the flying stationers, or standing and
running patterers; the long-song-sellers; the wall-song-sellers (or
“pinners-up,” as they are technically termed); the ballad sellers; the
vendors of play-bills, second editions of newspapers, back numbers of
periodicals and old books, almanacks, pocket books, memorandum books,
note paper, sealing-wax, pens, pencils, stenographic cards, valentines,
engravings, manuscript music, images, and gelatine poetry cards.
5. _The Street-sellers of Manufactured Articles_, which class
comprises a large number of individuals, as, (_a_) the vendors
of chemical articles of manufacture--viz., blacking, lucifers,
corn-salves, grease-removing compositions, plating-balls, poison for
rats, crackers, detonating-balls, and cigar-lights. (_b_) The vendors
of metal articles of manufacture--razors and pen-knives, tea-trays,
dog-collars, and key-rings, hardware, bird-cages, small coins, medals,
jewellery, tin-ware, tools, card-counters, red-herring-toasters,
trivets, gridirons, and Dutch ovens. (_c_) The vendors of china and
stone articles of manufacture--as cups and saucers, jugs, vases,
chimney ornaments, and stone fruit. (_d_) The vendors of linen,
cotton, and silken articles of manufacture--as sheeting, table-covers,
cotton, tapes and thread, boot and stay-laces, haberdashery, pretended
smuggled goods, shirt-buttons, etc., etc.; and (_e_) the vendors
of miscellaneous articles of manufacture--as cigars, pipes, and
snuff-boxes, spectacles, combs, “lots,” rhubarb, sponges, wash-leather,
paper-hangings, dolls, Bristol toys, sawdust, and pin-cushions.
6. _The Street-sellers of Second-hand Articles_, of whom there are
again four separate classes; as (_a_) those who sell old metal
articles--viz. old knives and forks, keys, tin-ware, tools, and
marine stores generally; (_b_) those who sell old linen articles--as
old sheeting for towels; (_c_) those who sell old glass and
crockery--including bottles, old pans and pitchers, old looking
glasses, &c.; and (_d_) those who sell old miscellaneous articles--as
old shoes, old clothes, old saucepan lids, &c., &c.
7. _The Street-sellers of Live Animals_--including the dealers in dogs,
squirrels, birds, gold and silver fish, and tortoises.
8. _The Street-sellers of Mineral Productions and Curiosities_--as red
and white sand, silver sand, coals, coke, salt, spar ornaments, and
shells.
These, so far as my experience goes, exhaust the whole class of
street-sellers, and they appear to constitute nearly three-fourths of
the entire number of individuals obtaining a subsistence in the streets
of London.
The next class are the STREET-BUYERS, under which denomination come the
purchasers of hareskins, old clothes, old umbrellas, bottles, glass,
broken metal, rags, waste paper, and dripping.
After these we have the STREET-FINDERS, or those who, as I said before,
literally “pick up” their living in the public thoroughfares. They are
the “pure” pickers, or those who live by gathering dogs’-dung; the
cigar-end finders, or “hard-ups,” as they are called, who collect the
refuse pieces of smoked cigars from the gutters, and having dried them,
sell them as tobacco to the very poor; the dredgermen or coal-finders;
the mud-larks, the bone-grubbers; and the sewer-hunters.
Under the fourth division, or that of the STREET-PERFORMERS, ARTISTS,
AND SHOWMEN, are likewise many distinct callings.
1. _The Street-Performers_, who admit of being classified into (_a_)
mountebanks--or those who enact puppet-shows, as Punch and Judy, the
fantoccini, and the Chinese shades. (_b_) The street-performers
of feats of strength and dexterity--as “acrobats” or posturers,
“equilibrists” or balancers, stiff and bending tumblers, jugglers,
conjurors, sword-swallowers, “salamanders” or fire-eaters, swordsmen,
etc. (_c_) The street-performers with trained animals--as dancing dogs,
performing monkeys, trained birds and mice, cats and hares, sapient
pigs, dancing bears, and tame camels. (_d_) The street-actors--as
clowns, “Billy Barlows,” “Jim Crows,” and others.
2. _The Street Showmen_, including shows of (_a_) extraordinary
persons--as giants, dwarfs, Albinoes, spotted boys, and pig-faced
ladies. (_b_) Extraordinary animals--as alligators, calves, horses
and pigs with six legs or two heads, industrious fleas, and happy
families. (_c_) Philosophic instruments--as the microscope, telescope,
thaumascope. (_d_) Measuring-machines--as weighing, lifting, measuring,
and striking machines; and (_e_) miscellaneous shows--such as
peep-shows, glass ships, mechanical figures, wax-work shows, pugilistic
shows, and fortune-telling apparatus.
3. _The Street-Artists_--as black profile-cutters, blind paper-cutters,
“screevers” or draughtsmen in coloured chalks on the pavement, writers
without hands, and readers without eyes.
4. _The Street Dancers_--as street Scotch girls, sailors, slack and
tight rope dancers, dancers on stilts, and comic dancers.
5. _The Street Musicians_--as the street bands (English and German),
players of the guitar, harp, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, dulcimer, musical
bells, cornet, tom-tom, &c.
6. _The Street Singers_, as the singers of glees, ballads, comic songs,
nigger melodies, psalms, serenaders, reciters, and improvisatori.
7. _The Proprietors of Street Games_, as swings, highflyers,
roundabouts, puff-and-darts, rifle shooting, down the dolly,
spin-’em-rounds, prick the garter, thimble-rig, etc.
Then comes the Fifth Division of the Street-Folk, viz., the
STREET-ARTIZANS, or WORKING PEDLARS;
These may be severally arranged into three distinct groups--(1) Those
who _make_ things in the streets; (2) Those who _mend_ things in the
streets; and (3) Those who _make_ things _at home_ and _sell_ them in
the _streets_.
1. Of _those who make things in the streets_ there are the
following varieties: (_a_) the metal workers--such as toasting-fork
makers, pin makers, engravers, tobacco-stopper makers. (_b_) The
textile-workers--stocking-weavers, cabbage-net makers, night-cap
knitters, doll-dress knitters. (_c_) The miscellaneous workers,--the
wooden spoon makers, the leather brace and garter makers, the printers,
and the glass-blowers.
2. _Those who mend things in the streets_, consist of broken china and
glass menders, clock menders, umbrella menders, kettle menders, chair
menders, grease removers, hat cleaners, razor and knife grinders,
glaziers, travelling bell hangers, and knife cleaners.
3. _Those who make things at home and sell them in the streets_, are
(_a_) the wood workers--as the makers of clothes-pegs, clothes-props,
skewers, needle-cases, foot-stools and clothes-horses, chairs
and tables, tea-caddies, writing-desks, drawers, work-boxes,
dressing-cases, pails and tubs. (_b_) The trunk, hat, and bonnet-box
makers, and the cane and rush basket makers. (_c_) The toy makers--such
as Chinese roarers, children’s windmills, flying birds and fishes,
feathered cocks, black velvet cats and sweeps, paper houses, cardboard
carriages, little copper pans and kettles, tiny tin fireplaces,
children’s watches, Dutch dolls, buy-a-brooms, and gutta-percha heads.
(_d_) The apparel makers--viz., the makers of women’s caps, boys and
men’s cloth caps, night-caps, straw bonnets, children’s dresses,
watch-pockets, bonnet shapes, silk bonnets, and gaiters. (_e_) The
metal workers,--as the makers of fire-guards, bird-cages, the wire
workers. (_f_) The miscellaneous workers--or makers of ornaments
for stoves, chimney ornaments, artificial flowers in pots and in
nose-gays, plaster-of-Paris night-shades, brooms, brushes, mats, rugs,
hearthstones, firewood, rush matting, and hassocks.
Of the last division, or STREET-LABOURERS, there are four classes:
1. _The Cleansers_--such as scavengers, nightmen, flushermen,
chimney-sweeps, dustmen, crossing-sweepers, “street-orderlies,”
labourers to sweeping-machines and to watering-carts.
2. _The Lighters and Waterers_--or the turncocks and the lamplighters.
3. _The Street-Advertisers_--viz., the bill-stickers, bill-deliverers,
boardmen, men to advertising vans, and wall and pavement stencillers.
4. _The Street-Servants_--as horse holders, link-men, coach-hirers,
street-porters, shoe-blacks.
OF THE NUMBER OF COSTERMONGERS AND OTHER STREET-FOLK.
The number of costermongers,--that it is to say, of those
street-sellers attending the London “green” and “fish
markets,”--appears to be, from the best data at my command, now 30,000
men, women, and children. The census of 1841 gives only 2,045 “hawkers,
hucksters, and pedlars,” in the metropolis, and no costermongers or
street-sellers, or street-performers at all. This number is absurdly
small, and its absurdity is accounted for by the fact that not one in
twenty of the costermongers, or of the people with whom they lodged,
troubled themselves to fill up the census returns--the majority of them
being unable to read and write, and others distrustful of the purpose
for which the returns were wanted.
The costermongering class extends itself yearly; and it is computed
that for the last five years it has increased considerably faster than
the general metropolitan population. This increase is derived partly
from _all_ the children of costermongers following the father’s trade,
but chiefly from working men, such as the servants of greengrocers or
of innkeepers, when out of employ, “taking to a coster’s barrow” for a
livelihood; and the same being done by mechanics and labourers out of
work. At the time of the famine in Ireland, it is calculated, that the
number of Irish obtaining a living in the London streets must have been
at least doubled.
The great discrepancy between the government returns and the accounts
of the costermongers themselves, concerning the number of people
obtaining a living by the sale of fish, fruit, and vegetables, in the
streets of London, caused me to institute an inquiry at the several
metropolitan markets concerning the number of street-sellers attending
them: the following is the result:
During the summer months and fruit season, the average number of
costermongers attending Covent-garden market is about 2,500 per
market-day. In the strawberry season there are nearly double as many,
there being, at that time, a large number of Jews who come to buy;
during that period, on a Saturday morning, from the commencement to
the close of the market, as many as 4,000 costers have been reckoned
purchasing at Covent-garden. Through the winter season, however, the
number of costermongers does not exceed upon the average 1,000 per
market morning. About one-tenth of the fruit and vegetables of the
least expensive kind sold at this market is purchased by the costers.
Some of the better class of costers, who have their regular customers,
are very particular as to the quality of the articles they buy; but
others are not so particular; so long as they can get things cheap, I
am informed, they do not care much about the quality. The Irish more
especially look out for damaged articles, which they buy at a low
price. One of my informants told me that the costers were the best
customers to the growers, inasmuch as when the market is flagging
on account of the weather, they (the costers) wait and make their
purchases. On other occasions, such as fine mornings, the costers
purchase as early as others. There is no trust given to them--to use
the words of one of my informants, they are such slippery customers;
here to-day and gone to-morrow.
At Leadenhall market, during the winter months, there are from 70 to
100 costermongers general attendants; but during the summer not much
more than one-half that number make their appearance. Their purchases
consist of warren-rabbits, poultry, and game, of which about one-eighth
of the whole amount brought to this market is bought by them. When the
market is slack, and during the summer, when there is “no great call”
for game, etc., the costers attending Leadenhall-market turn their hand
to crockery, fruit, and fish.
The costermongers frequenting Spitalfields-market average all the year
through from 700 to 1,000 each market-day. They come from all parts, as
far as Edmonton, Edgeware, and Tottenham; Highgate, Hampstead, and even
from Greenwich and Lewisham. Full one-third of the produce of this
market is purchased by them.
The number of costermongers attending the Borough-market is about 250
during the fruit season, after which time they decrease to about 200
per market morning. About one-sixth of the produce that comes into this
market is purchased by the costermongers. One gentleman informed me,
that the salesmen might shut up their shops were it not for these men.
“In fact,” said another, “I don’t know what would become of the fruit
without them.”
The costers at Billingsgate-market, daily, number from 3,000 to 4,000
in winter, and about 2,500 in summer. A leading salesman told me that
he would rather have an order from a costermonger than a fishmonger;
for the one paid ready money, while the other required credit. The same
gentleman assured me, that the costermongers bought excellent fish, and
that very largely. They themselves aver that they purchase half the
fish brought to Billingsgate--some fish trades being entirely in their
hands. I ascertained, however, from the authorities at Billingsgate,
and from experienced salesmen, that of the quantity of fish conveyed
to that great mart, the costermongers bought one-third; another third
was sent into the country; and another disposed of to the fishmongers,
and to such hotel-keepers, or other large purchasers, as resorted to
Billingsgate.
The salesmen at the several markets all agreed in stating that no
trust was given to the costermongers. “Trust them!” exclaimed one, “O,
certainly, as far as I can see them.”
Now, adding the above figures together, we have the subjoined sum for
the gross number of
COSTERMONGERS ATTENDING THE LONDON MARKETS.
Billingsgate-market 3,500
Covent-garden 4,000
Spitalfields 1,000
Borough 250
Leadenhall 100
-----
8,850
-----
Besides these, I am credibly informed, that it may be assumed there
are full 1,000 men who are unable to attend market, owing to the
dissipation of the previous night; another 1,000 are absent owing to
their having “stock on hand,” and so requiring no fresh purchases;
and further, it may be estimated that there are at least 2,000 boys
in London at work for costers, at half profits, and who consequently
have no occasion to visit the markets. Hence, putting these numbers
together, we arrive at the conclusion that there are in London upwards
of 13,000 street-sellers, dealing in fish, fruit, vegetables, game,
and poultry alone. To be on the safe side, however, let us assume the
number of London costermongers to be 12,000, and that one-half of these
are married and have two children (which from all accounts appears to
be about the proportion); and then we have 30,000 for the sum total
of men, women, and children dependent on “costermongering” for their
subsistence.
Large as this number may seem, still I am satisfied it is rather
within than beyond the truth. In order to convince myself of its
accuracy, I caused it to be checked in several ways. In the first
place, a survey was made as to the number of stalls in the streets of
London--forty-six miles of the principal thoroughfares were travelled
over, and an account taken of the “standings.” Thus it was found that
there were upon an average upwards of fourteen stalls to the mile,
of which five-sixths were fish and fruit-stalls. Now, according to
the Metropolitan Police Returns, there are 2,000 miles of street
throughout London, and calculating that the stalls through the whole
of the metropolis run upon an average only four to the mile, we shall
thus find that there are 8,000 stalls altogether in London; of these
we may reckon that at least 6,000 are fish and fruit-stalls. I am
informed, on the best authority, that twice as many costers “go rounds”
as have standings; hence we come to the conclusion that there are
18,000 itinerant and stationary street-sellers of fish, vegetables, and
fruit, in the metropolis; and reckoning the same proportion of wives
and children as before, we have thus 45,000 men, women, and children,
obtaining a living in this manner. Further, “to make assurance doubly
sure,” the street-markets throughout London were severally visited,
and the number of street-sellers at each taken down on the spot.
These gave a grand total of 3,801, of which number two-thirds were
dealers in fish, fruit, and vegetables; and reckoning that twice as
many costers again were on their rounds, we thus make the total number
of London costermongers to be 11,403, or calculating men, women, and
children, 28,506. It would appear, therefore, that if we estimate the
gross number of individuals subsisting on the sale of fish, fruit, and
vegetables, in the streets of London, at between twenty-five and thirty
thousand, we shall not be very wide of the truth.
But, great as is this number, still the costermongers are only a
portion of the street-folk. Besides these, there are, as we have
seen, many other large classes obtaining their livelihood in the
streets. The street musicians, for instance, are said to number 1,000,
and the old clothesmen the same. There are supposed to be at the
least 500 sellers of water-cresses; 200 coffee-stalls; 300 cats-meat
men; 250 ballad-singers; 200 play-bill sellers; from 800 to 1,000
bone-grubbers and mud-larks; 1,000 crossing-sweepers; another thousand
chimney-sweeps, and the same number of turncocks and lamp-lighters;
all of whom, together with the street-performers and showmen, tinkers,
chair, umbrella, and clock-menders, sellers of bonnet-boxes, toys,
stationery, songs, last dying-speeches, tubs, pails, mats, crockery,
blacking, lucifers, corn-salves, clothes-pegs, brooms, sweetmeats,
razors, dog-collars, dogs, birds, coals, sand,--scavengers, dustmen,
and others, make up, it may be fairly assumed, full thirty thousand
adults, so that, reckoning men, women, and children, we may truly
say that there are upwards of fifty thousand individuals, or about a
fortieth-part of the entire population of the metropolis getting their
living in the streets.
Now of all modes of obtaining subsistence, that of street-selling is
the most precarious. Continued wet weather deprives those who depend
for their bread upon the number of people frequenting the public
thoroughfares of all means of living; and it is painful to think of the
hundreds belonging to this class in the metropolis who are reduced
to starvation by three or four days successive rain. Moreover, in the
winter, the street-sellers of fruit and vegetables are cut off from the
ordinary means of gaining their livelihood, and, consequently, they
have to suffer the greatest privations at a time when the severity
of the season demands the greatest amount of physical comforts. To
expect that the increased earnings of the summer should be put aside
as a provision against the deficiencies of the winter, is to expect
that a precarious occupation should beget provident habits, which is
against the nature of things, for it is always in those callings which
are the most uncertain, that the greatest amount of improvidence and
intemperance are found to exist. It is not the well-fed man, be it
observed, but the starving one that is in danger of surfeiting himself.
Moreover, when the religious, moral, and intellectual degradation of
the great majority of these fifty thousand people is impressed upon
us, it becomes positively appalling to contemplate the vast amount of
vice, ignorance and want, existing in these days in the very heart of
our land. The public have but to read the following plain unvarnished
account of the habits, amusements, dealings, education, politics, and
religion of the London costermongers in the nineteenth century, and
then to say whether they think it safe--even if it be thought fit--to
allow men, women, and children to continue in such a state.
OF THE VARIETIES OF STREET-FOLK IN GENERAL, AND COSTERMONGERS IN
PARTICULAR.
Among the street-folk there are many distinct characters of
people--people differing as widely from each in tastes, habits,
thoughts and creed, as one nation from another. Of these the
costermongers form by far the largest and certainly the mostly
broadly marked class. They appear to be a distinct race--perhaps,
originally, of Irish extraction--seldom associating with any other of
the street-folks, and being all known to each other. The “patterers,”
or the men who cry the last dying-speeches, &c. in the street, and
those who help off their wares by long harrangues in the public
thoroughfares, are again a separate class. These, to use their own
term, are “the aristocracy of the street-sellers,” despising the
costers for their ignorance, and boasting that they live by their
intellect. The public, they say, do not expect to receive from them an
equivalent for their money--they pay to hear them talk. Compared with
the costermongers, the patterers are generally an educated class, and
among them are some classical scholars, one clergyman, and many sons of
gentlemen. They appear to be the counterparts of the old mountebanks
or street-doctors. As a body they seem far less improvable than the
costers, being more “knowing” and less impulsive. The street-performers
differ again from those; these appear to possess many of the
characteristics of the lower class of actors, viz., a strong desire to
excite admiration, an indisposition to pursue any settled occupation,
a love of the tap-room, though more for the society and display than
for the drink connected with it, a great fondness for finery and
predilection for the performance of dexterous or dangerous feats.
Then there are the street mechanics, or artizans--quiet, melancholy,
struggling men, who, unable to find any regular employment at their
own trade, have made up a few things, and taken to hawk them in the
streets, as the last shift of independence. Another distinct class of
street-folk are the blind people (mostly musicians in a rude way), who,
after the loss of their eyesight, have sought to keep themselves from
the workhouse by some little excuse for alms-seeking. These, so far
as my experience goes, appear to be a far more deserving class than
is usually supposed--their affliction, in most cases, seems to have
chastened them and to have given a peculiar religious cast to their
thoughts.
Such are the several varieties of street-folk, intellectually
considered--looked at in a national point of view, they likewise
include many distinct people. Among them are to be found the Irish
fruit-sellers; the Jew clothesmen; the Italian organ boys, French
singing women, the German brass bands, the Dutch buy-a-broom girls, the
Highland bagpipe players, and the Indian crossing-sweepers--all of whom
I here shall treat of in due order.
The costermongering class or order has also its many varieties. These
appear to be in the following proportions:--One-half of the entire
class are costermongers proper, that is to say, the calling with them
is hereditary, and perhaps has been so for many generations; while
the other half is composed of three-eighths Irish, and one-eighth
mechanics, tradesmen, and Jews.
Under the term “costermonger” is here included only such
“street-sellers” as deal in fish, fruit, and vegetables, purchasing
their goods at the wholesale “green” and fish markets. Of these some
carry on their business at the same stationary stall or “standing” in
the street, while others go on “rounds.” The itinerant costermongers,
as contradistinguished from the stationary street-fishmongers and
greengrocers, have in many instances regular rounds, which they go
daily, and which extend from two to ten miles. The longest are those
which embrace a suburban part; the shortest are through streets
thickly peopled by the poor, where duly to “work” a single street
consumes, in some instances, an hour. There are also “chance” rounds.
Men “working” these carry their wares to any part in which they hope to
find customers. The costermongers, moreover, diversify their labours by
occasionally going on a country round, travelling on these excursions,
in all directions, from thirty to ninety and even a hundred miles from
the metropolis. Some, again, confine their callings chiefly to the
neighbouring races and fairs.
Of all the characteristics attending these diversities of traders,
I shall treat severally. I may here premise, that the regular or
“thorough-bred costermongers,” repudiate the numerous persons who sell
only nuts or oranges in the streets, whether at a fixed stall, or any
given locality, or who hawk them through the thoroughfares or parks.
They repudiate also a number of Jews, who confine their street-trading
to the sale of “coker-nuts” on Sundays, vended from large barrows. Nor
do they rank with themselves the individuals who sell tea and coffee in
the streets, or such condiments as peas-soup, sweetmeats, spice-cakes,
and the like; those articles not being purchased at the markets. I
often heard all such classes called “the illegitimates.”
OF COSTERMONGERING MECHANICS.
“From the numbers of mechanics,” said one smart costermonger to me,
“that I know of in my own district, I should say there’s now more than
1,000 costers in London that were once mechanics or labourers. They
are driven to it as a last resource, when they can’t get work at their
trade. They don’t do well, at least four out of five, or three out
of four don’t. They’re not up to the dodges of the business. They go
to market with fear, and don’t know how to venture a bargain if one
offers. They’re inferior salesmen too, and if they have fish left that
won’t keep, it’s a dead loss to them, for they aren’t up to the trick
of selling it cheap at a distance where the coster ain’t known; or of
quitting it to another, for candle-light sale, cheap, to the Irish
or to the ‘lushingtons,’ that haven’t a proper taste for fish. Some
of these poor fellows lose every penny. They’re mostly middle-aged
when they begin costering. They’ll generally commence with oranges or
herrings. We pity them. We say, ‘Poor fellows! they’ll find it out
by-and-bye.’ It’s awful to see some poor women, too, trying to pick up
a living in the streets by selling nuts or oranges. It’s awful to see
them, for they can’t set about it right; besides that, there’s too many
before they start. They don’t find a living, _it’s only another way of
starving_.”
ANCIENT CALLING OF COSTERMONGERS.
The earliest record of London cries is, according to Mr. Charles
Knight, in Lydgate’s poem of “London Lyckpeny,” which is as old as the
days of Henry V., or about 430 years back. Among Lydgate’s cries are
enumerated “Strawberries ripe and cherries in the rise;” the _rise_
being a twig to which the cherries were tied, as at present. Lydgate,
however, only indicates costermongers, but does not mention them by
name.
It is not my intention, as my inquiries are directed to the _present_
condition of the costermongers, to dwell on this part of the question,
but some historical notice of so numerous a body is indispensable. I
shall confine myself therefore to show from the elder dramatists, how
the costermongers flourished in the days of Elizabeth and James I.